The Memorist

by M. J. Rose

  As she stepped away, Sebastian came over, put his arms around his son and kissed his forehead. He stayed like that for a few seconds and Meer turned away, not wanting to intrude. She wished she could tell Sebastian that holding Nicolas like that helped, except she knew that for her, nothing helped. No one’s arms had been able to pull her out of the freezing cold hell when she slipped into it.

  Before they left the room, Sebastian walked over to a shelf above the bed where there was a radio and turned it on. A Sibelius symphony filled the room. “Now, we can go,” he said to Meer.

  Outside, Sebastian led her down a small path. “Do you mind walking?”

  Mostly because he wanted to and she ached to assuage some of the pain in his eyes if she possibly could, she said it was fine.

  “I saw you turn on the radio in your son’s room,” she said, returning to the only subject, she was sure, that he could focus on now.

  “Nicolas always loved listening to music. Even when he was a tiny baby. I think that’s when I was the happiest…when my son sat, listening to music I made for him.”

  “Do you still play for him?”

  He nodded. “He doesn’t seem to hear me but his chanting seems to adjust to the rhythm of what I’m playing. I’ve arranged for the nurses to play the classical music radio station for him, and when I have a performance that’s being broadcast they’re very good about putting it on and telling him it’s me. I keep hoping that one day the music will reach him.”

  “The power of music…”

  “Is there anything you noticed about Nicolas that’s similar to what you experienced?”

  “I wasn’t that lost.”

  “Your father thinks he’s having what Malachai Samuels calls a past life break.”

  She nodded. “He describes it as a dam collapsing. Too many memories flooding in, overpowering the mind.”

  “Is that what you think happened to you?”

  “No. I had a slow trickle of false memories that I created myself.”

  “Your father introduced me to Malachai Samuels via e-mail and since then I’ve talked to him twice over the phone. I wanted to pay him to come here and work with Nicolas but he told me it’s hard for him to leave the country now.”

  “Not anymore. In fact he’ll be here tomorrow, coming for Wednesday’s auction. Maybe you can convince your wife to let just one last stranger in.”

  They’d reached a small pond encircled by tall pine trees that scented the air with menthol and cast cool blue shadows. Picking up a pinecone, Sebastian threw it into the pond with surprising ferocity, and it hit the silvery calm surface with an angry splash. The impact sent a series of concentric circles rippling outward, each ring growing larger and larger until it vanished.

  “Did he help you?”

  “Not to figure out what was happening, no. But he did teach me to keep the attacks at bay and stop them from paralyzing me.”

  She tripped on a branch and Sebastian reached out to keep her from falling. She was aware of the momentary pressure of his fingers on her arm.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I thought since we’re here, I’d show you the church that Wagner built. It’s beautiful. Probably the only thing worthwhile in this whole detestable place.”

  While they continued on, she tried to answer the rest of his questions about what it had been like for her when she was a child.

  “You must have been very scared,” he finally said with so much empathy it made her throat hurt.

  I still am, she almost said. But that would be saying something she wasn’t sure she wanted him to hear. Or wanted to admit. Even to herself.

  Chapter 27

  The Celts were fearless warriors because they wished to inculcate this as one of their leading tenets, that souls do not become extinct, but pass after death from one body to another…

  —Julius Caesar

  Vienna, Austria

  Sunday, April 27th—3:00 p.m.

  Sebastian stood in the small square and pointed to the stone staircase and street beyond it. “Up there is the Mölker Bastei where Herr Beethoven lived for a time.”

  On the way back to town, Sebastian, who was depressed after his visit with his son, asked Meer if she still wanted to see the Beethoven house that she’d been interested in the day before. She was reluctant to take up more of this man’s time but he insisted it would be as much of a distraction for him as it was for her. Now, as they climbed toward it, Sebastian fell into guide mode.

  “Beethoven lived in over forty apartments in Vienna, moving so often because he was so messy and noisy he kept getting evicted. This is one of the few residences open to the public. A few others are just outside the city.”

  Like every serious student of music, Meer knew the basics: born in Germany, Beethoven spent most of his adult life in Vienna. Despite a significant hearing loss that ultimately led to deafness, his infirmity didn’t mar his genius and he composed some of his greatest symphonies without being able to hear them clearly.

  Looking at the long row of attached cream-colored identical buildings, her eye was drawn to number eight, which flew an Austrian flag. Staring at the freshly painted facade, Meer searched for spots where history seeped through. Her eye was drawn to one set of eight-over-eight paned windows on the sixth floor.

  “This is what I love the most about Vienna,” he said as they kept climbing. “Streets where nothing has changed in over two hundred years. This is almost exactly how it looked when Beethoven lived here.”

  A pigeon landed on the building’s pitched roofline. Then another. Until there was a twittering audience watching their progress.

  “In his diary,” Sebastian continued, “he wrote that every afternoon he’d go for a long walk because he thought so much better when he was on the move. I picture him charging out the front door, coattails flying behind, disappearing down these steps. Already quite famous by the time he lived here, people on the street would recognize him and point him out. ‘That’s Herr Beethoven, the composer,’ they’d whisper as he strode by.”

  The words on the plaque on the front of the building were in German but Meer recognized Beethoven’s name and the dates of his residence there.

  “Most people make the gigantic fuss over Mozart,” Sebastian said. “Vienna has made him the hero of the city. There’s even a chocolate candy with his picture on it. I understand he was, what’s the expression, a true native son, born in Vienna. But like you, I prefer Beethoven.”

  Had she actually told him that or had he simply intuited it because she’d chosen his house to visit?

  “Why?” she asked.

  “He had every reason to give up his hope and his music but he persevered. He faced the worst thing a composer can face and it made him stronger. He went further than everyone before him and influenced all those who came after. He wrote music that mapped the soul.”

  “Mapped the soul,” she repeated, wanting to remember the phrase.

  Sebastian held the door open and Meer walked inside. The vestibule was dark and small and there was nowhere to go but up the staircase. She started climbing. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. When she realized she was counting the steps she stopped but was at it again without realizing it only a few seconds later. Fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six. At the sixth landing, Meer stopped.

  “How did you know we’re here?” he asked from behind her.

  “Didn’t you tell me the apartment was on the sixth floor?”

  “Did I?”

  The door to the left was painted white like all the others, except beside it was a plaque etched with Beethoven’s name and a set of dates. Sebastian pulled it open and held it for her.

  The jarring brightness of the whitewashed walls bewildered her as strains of the Moonlight Sonata emanated from inside and reached out to welcome her. Meer hesitated at the threshold, carefully wiped her feet first, then stepped inside.

  Sebastian hadn’t followed her in. He was still standing in the hallway with a
curious expression on his face. Meer followed his glance. He was staring down at the spot where she’d wiped her feet on the doormat.

  Except there was no doormat.

  Something was wrong with the air inside Beethoven’s apartment; it smelled of fake pine disinfectant instead of wax and wine and bread baking in the apartment next door. Even the walls were the wrong color—instead of such a clean, bright white, they should have been more yellow.

  Meer wandered from room to room examining the exhibition cases that housed Beethoven artifacts, studying the portraits of his contemporaries, street scenes of Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth century, handwritten scores, programs from musical events, even his shaving mug and hearing trumpet. When she reached the case with his plaster life mask she stared at Beethoven’s face—not handsome but imperious and vigorous with broad cheeks, a strong chin and a wide forehead. She stared at it so long she became self-conscious and looked around to make sure Sebastian wasn’t watching her, but she was alone, waiting, as if communication across the centuries was possible.

  In the next room, she stood in front of the maestro’s piano. It was so easy to imagine him hunched over the keyboard, the black and ivory keys dancing as he coaxed elaborate melodies from them. Meer started to shake as chills racked her body and her head began to throb. The room shimmered and became translucent. The familiar metallic taste filled her mouth and made her teeth hurt. Her back throbbed. Music filled her head and, dizzy with the sound of it, she expelled a long breath and felt a deep and debilitating emotion rise out of the depths of her subconscious.

  Chapter 28

  Vienna, Austria

  October 14th, 1814

  “Your fingering is off. Try again. Move faster, as if the wind is chasing you.” Beethoven’s voice was too loud—he couldn’t hear himself well enough to modulate it.

  Margaux tried to concentrate…but these days she was always thinking about what she was doing—how terrible it was and how necessary. Was the plan working? Was Beethoven starting to trust her? Was Caspar worse or better? She felt as if she hadn’t taken a deep breath since Caspar had left almost nine months before.

  “Much better. But try again. Faster still. Feel more wind.”

  She moved her fingers faster. Then faster. And then she was making music. It wasn’t right that she had to discover a passion for the piano during an act of duplicity and deception.

  Finished, she looked up from the keyboard to find Beethoven nodding at her.

  “Yes, yes. It’s wonderful how quickly you learn. Beauty and talent. You’re doubly blessed, as am I, to have you as a student.”

  His flirtatiousness was so sincere it disarmed her.

  “Thank you,” Margaux said, remembering to look at him when she spoke so he could read her lips.

  “And your husband…he was even more blessed.”

  Moved and truly grateful, she put her hand on his.

  “I have often thought about what I’ve missed by never being married. But whatever I gave up in one way, I gained by having time for more noble pursuits.” There was pride in his voice but also a lonely echo and Margaux didn’t remove her hand.

  After Rudolph Toller had admitted he’d given Beethoven the flute that legally belonged to her in the hopes the composer would be able to decipher the ancient instrument’s music, the British major, Archer Wells, had come up with a scheme.

  Margaux would take piano lessons from the maestro, which would put her in his home and give her access to steal the flute once he had figured out its song. Then Archer would buy the flute on behalf of the Rothschild family whom he’d contacted and were so anxious to own it they’d offered enough to fund Caspar’s search party.

  But the plan depended on Beethoven accepting her as a student, and that worried her.

  “Margaux, how could he refuse you? How could any man?” Archer had asked, flirting. The compliment had made her think of Caspar, feel his breath in her ear as he’d whispered to her the last time they’d gone to the opera—you’re the loveliest woman here, do you know that?

  Archer’s eyes lingered on her décolletage as he continued, “Beethoven adores having beautiful female students. Especially when they come bearing money. Since July, he’s lost two of his three benefactors. First Prince Lobkowitz, who had serious financial setbacks, and then Prince Kinski, who fell off his horse and died.” He reached out and in the air drew a line following the swell of her flesh where the neckline of the dress ended.

  This, too, she would endure. For Caspar. Anything for Caspar. While other women changed men like costumes, she was interested only in moving all the mountains in India to find her husband and bring him home. And to do that she needed Archer and the money the Rothschilds were offering in exchange for the flute and its music.

  The hour lesson ended and Margaux proposed supper—she’d gotten into the habit of bringing the maestro’s favorites when she came to study: good wine, cheese, fruit and bread.

  “First the wine,” he said. “And bring it here, I thought I’d play something from my new symphony for you.”

  Margaux brought a full glass to the piano. She was still horrified at how sloppy he was, eating and drinking everywhere but at the table, leaving glasses and plates on the bench, under it, on the piano lid itself. Even his chamber pot was sometimes in plain sight. As disgusting as his behavior was, Beethoven’s music made it possible to ignore what was so base and mundane about him. It elevated him.

  He took the wine with his left hand while with his right he teased out a few notes on the keyboard. Greedily, he emptied the glass, put it down and began to play with both hands. His music dipped and soared and caressed and soothed and aroused all at once, and she was moved.

  Finished, he sat staring down at his hands on the keys and spoke without looking over at her. “Life has been a little brighter to me of late since I have mingled with you. I think you can have no idea how sad, how intensely desolate, my life has been during the last two years. My deafness, like a specter, appears before me everywhere, so that I flee from society and am obliged to act the part of a misanthrope, though I hope you see by now, I am not one by nature.”

  “I’m honored. More than I can say.”

  He didn’t hear her so she lifted his chin so that he was looking at her and repeated her words. Beethoven smiled and Margaux knew at that moment her plan was going to work.

  “Should we have something to eat?” he asked, suddenly full of energy.

  On her way to the table she passed the window, glanced out and noticed a man standing in the shadowed recess of a doorway across the street. Even in profile the sharp nose and slightly stooped shoulders were familiar. Stepping back a few inches to make sure he wouldn’t be able to see her if he looked up, she peered into the encroaching twilight. Was it really her husband’s partner? Then he turned and she saw Toller’s hollow cheekbones and half-dead eyes. How had he discovered her plans?

  It wasn’t that difficult to figure out, really. Foreign ministers of the five great powers and all their minions were gathered in Vienna to define the future of Europe; every one of them was so paranoid about the others, spying was now as much a national pastime as dancing the waltz. Everyone’s valets, butlers, maids and menservants were capable of espionage. Garbage was sold at premium for the scraps of notes that could be salvaged from the potato peels and beef bones. A shopping list from the Tsar’s household went for more money than a silver service on the chance it was a coded communiqué.

  Toller could easily have hired someone to follow her and keep track of her appointments without her ever noticing. Not in the crowds these days. Not with all the people who visited her salon at night. But would she be able to accomplish her task under Toller’s watchful gaze? Was her plan ruined?

  Setting the table, her hands trembled and dropped a knife. She looked over. Beethoven’s hearing was slightly better today and he’d noticed. His eyes questioned her but she just shrugged. Maybe she should just tell him the truth and offer to pay him more th
an what Toller had offered for Beethoven’s translation of the notes. Would the Rothschilds’ offer cover what the Memorists were paying Beethoven and pay for the expedition and search party?

  Margaux cleared a chair for herself and then went to do the same for Beethoven. Lifting his coat off the second chair she felt the rough wool in her hands and noticed how worn it was: fraying at the edges, missing buttons.

  “You should have a better coat.”

  “I do. But when I go out for a walk and don’t care to be disturbed I wear that old one and a hat that casts deep shadows over my face. Disguised as such a poor man, I can observe without being observed and the world is mine to explore.”

  Maybe she could borrow the coat and the hat to leave with tonight so Toller wouldn’t notice her. It was worth a try. Caspar used to have her dress as a young boy when traveling was dangerous and she was good at changing her stride to mimic a man’s.

  The last article on the seat was a tan-colored chamois shirt and as she touched it the soft leather fell away and she was looking down at the treasure she hoped was going to be the key to saving her husband; her personal holy grail.

  Being married to Caspar had put her in a rare position to learn what men learned. Studying with him, reading the books he read, her interest in foreign cultures, legends and mythology developed to match his. She shared his dreams about finding treasures hidden under layers of dead cities and lost civilizations and had long imagined finding one of the fabled memory tools.

  During their twelve years of marriage, he’d taken seven trips to India, which had cost them dearly; all of her dowry and his inheritance had been spent, leaving them almost impoverished. But he’d been certain he was getting closer to their goal with each trip. He’d lived to find one of the memory tools and either he’d died acquiring it or was going to die if she couldn’t use it to save him.